Interview with McLaren Applied Chairman Nick Fry

Nick Fry speaks with the calm assurance of a man fully confident in his own abilities. It’s the type of confidence that comes from several decades at the forefront of the automotive and motorsport industries, experiencing the highs of racing glory as well as the lows of financial crises and sporting near-misses.

His current role as non-executive chairman of McLaren Applied has seen Fry help steer the company back towards its automotive roots, refocusing on its core engineering heritage in the wake of Covid. But despite having leading roles with some of the biggest names in motoring throughout his career, his own academic roots lie elsewhere. “My degree in fact is in economics,” said Fry. “After university I had the choice of Procter and Gamble, Unilever or Ford, and decided that frozen peas and detergents weren’t quite the thing for me. So I went off to Ford and I started in sales and marketing.”